The ISS crew used floating tea leaves to discover an elusive air leak.

The International Space Station has been leaking an unusual amount of air since September 2019.

Initially, the crew postponed troubleshooting the issue due to a leak. Was not a major.. However, in August, the leak rate increased, and astronauts and astronauts in orbiting laboratories began to seriously pinpoint its source.

Russian space agency, Roscosmos, Presentation On Thursday, the crew finally identified the location of the leak after devising an unusual test: they had tea leaves guide their search.

Astronaut Anatoly Ivanicin has released a few leaves from the tea bag in the transfer chamber of the Zvezda Service Module. This is the section of the Russian segment that houses the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. The crew then closed the hatch to seal the chamber and watched the tea leaves floating under microgravity with a video camera.

The leaves were slowly floating towards scratches on the wall near the module’s communications equipment. This indicates that it was a crack through which the air escaped.

The crew has been using to patch leaks ever since Kapton tape, Roscosmos Reported on monday..

Astronaut Jeffrey Ashby will move to the Zvezda Service Module on May 25, 2011. (NASA)

One year air leak at the space station

International Space Station There is always a little air leak. Replenishment missions typically carry high-pressure containers filled with a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen to replace the air lost by the ISS. The mix is ​​designed to mimic the breathable air of the earth.

However, in September 2019, the standard leak rate increased slightly. According to Russian news agencies, this was not considered a major risk, but by August 2020, the already rising rate had quintupled from £ 0.6 to £ 3.1 per day. Ria Novosti..

Therefore, for the past two months, the crew has Looked for a leak By separating the sections of the station and monitoring their pressure changes.

Initially, the crew moved to the Zvezda module while testing the other sections of the ship.When they couldn’t find evidence of a leak in those sections, they had a leak Probably in Zvezda itself..

Eventually, astronauts and astronauts narrowed down the sources to the Zvezda transfer room. But they still couldn’t find the exact location of the leak.

Then came the tea leaf trick.

“I believe we have actually identified a potential leak area,” Ivanicin said. Russian news agency TASS.

The tape placed on the cracks by the crew can remain stable and sticky over a wide range of temperatures, including spaces at near absolute zero. However, members do not believe that the tape is likely to be held for a long time. They want to replace it with a more reliable patch soon.

“Maybe you need to try the hard patches your partner has? We can talk to them because the current patches aren’t very efficient,” said one crew member. It was. According to TASS..

Roscosmos didn’t answer Business Insider’s question in time for the release, but the agency said in a tweet that it “has created an operational program to permanently block the location of the leak.”

NASA spokesman Daniel Foott told Business Insider that Leak “does not pose an imminent danger to the crew at current leak rates.”

Not the first issue on the Russian side of the space station

Leaks are one of several recent problems with space stations, and space stations are beginning to show their age after longevity. Life expectancy of 15 years By 5 years.

The Russian segment of the station has some of the oldest modules in the station.In the last few months it has seen The toilet will be bust And temperature Mysterious increase..Then on Wednesday, of the segment Oxygen supply system failed.. According to Roscosmos, the crew fixed the system by Saturday.

But overall, the failure indicates that the Russian side of the ISS probably needs an upgrade.

“All modules in the Russian segment have been exhausted,” said astronaut Gennady Padalka. Told to Ria Novosti..

This latest leak was also not the first on the Russian side. August 2018, crew Found a 2mm drill hole Part of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked at the station.

2018 Soyuz spacecraft holes and patches. (NASA / ChrisBergin / Twitter)

The holes seemed to be due to a manufacturing defect. It seems that someone on earth was painting it in the hope that no one would notice it. The paint, which appeared, broke later. The astronaut eventually applied an epoxy sealant to the hole.

Katya Ionova helped translate this story.

This article was originally published by Business insider..

Other Business Insider Articles: